Technical development of proteomics

Proteome research is an important complementarity for the genome research, which uses quantitative protein-level measurements to characterize biological process. Proteome techniques include two aspects. One is two-dimensional electrophoresis, which is the unique technology to separate the components of proteome. The other is identification of the separated spots, which is the mainstay of the proteome. Image analysis can define the primary attributes, such as isoelectric point and molecular weight; microsequencing is the elementary tool; peptide mass fingerprinting and peptide fragment sequencing via mass spectrometry can get higher resolution and accuracy; amino acid composition analysis can also be used to identify the proteins. Application of these techniques in proteomics depends on various database, software and network as well as high throughput screening.